Mars Attacks — The Dice Game

Ack. Ack ack-ack ack. Ack-ack ack.

And that's all I have to say about that.

UPDATE: Ok, I've been asked to write more about it, so here goes! I was really looking forward to this one because I love Steve Jackson Games and I love the whole Mars Attacks franchise — great "comics".

But I was soooo disappointed!

You get a pile of cards, each of which containing the name of a city or national monument. There are spaces on the card that let you know how many guns (or Martians) you need to roll in order to claim that card. You put down 4 piles of cards (each pile contains the same number of cards — face down, except for the top card — as there are players). Each card also tells you how many nukes you can roll before you are destroyed (and this variable changes by +1 or +2 depending upon how difficult you want to make your game.

Your 10 dice have images of guns, Martians, and nuke symbols. If you're on a city, you're trying for guns (you can re-roll any Martians; nukes remain nukes and are set aside). On a monument, you're trying for Martians (so you only get one roll, because you can't re-roll guns). But if you roll too many nukes (you can roll until you decide to stop, of until you reach your nuke limit), you die and the turn passes to the next player. You keep your place (with a marker) on the card (one spot for each good dice roll during which you didn't die), but if another player is able to beat you to the last spot, they claim the card. You don't have to stick with one card, you can work on a different one each turn (in the pic you can see I have a marker on San Antonio and one on Dallas). The cards can give you bonus actions that can help you.

Gee, when I describe it here, it really sounds fun.

But it's really not. First of all, you're rolling all 10 dice at once. The chances of rolling the 2-3 nukes you want to avoid are — we found out — REALLY high!!! So here is how a game went:

ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Hey, I got two hits! (next roll) Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Yay! I hit! Oh, no, wait, I didn't see that nuke.
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
ME (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!
OPPONENT (rolling all 10 dice): Darn, nuked!

... and I'm really not exaggerating (some games went better), though there were probably a few more hits. But it took forever to claim a card. And that was it; that was the game. I hated it. My 13-year-old hated it.

To be fair, the rules weren't very clear on this one point: we couldn't tell if we were supposed to lose ALL our guns (if that is what we were rolling for) for our entire turn if we rolled the, say three, nukes needed to end our turn. If we rolled two nukes and three guns and then opted to take our chances and roll again, only to roll a few guns and another nuke, do we lose ALL our gun points? Or do we get to keep the three from the first roll? Knowing how SJGames' Zombie Dice goes, we'd lose everything. But we were getting nowhere. So after playing that way the first time, we played another game wherein only the guns from the fatal roll were lost. We progressed a LITTLE faster, but still, each turn consisted of one or two rolls, tops. Any that went past that were REALLY rare (it might have happened once or twice).

And we read that rule over and over — we DID have to roll all 10 dice at once. But I wondered if the game would have been more interesting if you could only roll one die at a time, opting to stop before getting your third nuke — and getting to count all the GOOD rolls up to that point. And maybe if you DO roll the third nuke you lose EVERYTHING you rolled during that turn. I didn't play that way, but now I wish I had tried it.

Want a good dice-rolling game? Go for Zombie Dice or Martian Dice (which is a little more fun than Zombie Dice, in my opinion) or if you want something with more to it, try Quarriors or Dice Capades. But not Mars Attacks. I ended up giving my copy of the game to some younger kids in the 'hood, since it would have been hard to get my money back for it. Maybe they'll like it because little kids don't mind some mindless gameplay. I did mention my disappointment to SJGames on Twitter -- told them they need to rethink the rules. I guess I was hoping for more Quarriors, less Pick-up Sticks.

And Steve Jackson Games ain't cheap — so we deserve better. My heart is still with you, SJGames! Just not with this one game.